Embroidery as Art

Show Your Support and Be Recognized

2012-05-17T13:31:00.000-05:00

The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum has launched a micro-donations campaign to help support acquisitions of work by all the artists in the forthcoming show, 40 Under 40 : Craft Futures.

Donations of $10 or more will be recognized online, and those who donate before July 11, 2012 will be credited in the exhibition. Here is your chance to support the work of artists within our own community who are being recognized by this prestigious and venerable institution -and show that you are a part of it. To give $10, text Renwick40 and your name to 20222 or visit Support 40 Under 40: Craft Futures.

DOE Projekts - Just Us At Work

2012-05-14T16:52:00.000-05:00

Link

Concept to Collaboration : Piecing it together

2012-05-12T12:37:00.004-05:00

Piecing together all of the embroidered words from the Concept to Collaboration project. Embroidering some of the remaining words. The finished piece will go on display at the Fowler Museum of Art at UCLA on May 31st for Fowler Out Loud. More about this piece when it's finished...

Randi Malkin Steinberger - Pt. 1

2012-05-08T19:12:00.000-05:00

Me in the Mirror - Randi Malkin Steinberger

Kind thanks to Randi for sending me an image of her embroidered photo assemblage. Randi will be giving a talk at the Fowler Museum of Art at UCLA tomorrow at noon, sharing her incredible story of photographing Afghan women while they embroidered Alighieri Boetti's works.

The exhibition and her talk are not to be missed. If you can't be there, watch for Pt 2 on Randi.

Link

Concept to Collaboration

Evelin Kasikov

2012-05-08T10:29:00.004-05:00

Browsing Copy

The Portrait Project

Previously blogged on Sublime Stitching - Stitched Type / Evelin Kasikov

Thanks for the update Judah!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Jacob Magraw-Mickelson

2012-05-04T14:48:00.001-05:00

Link & Link

Stacey Page

2012-04-25T17:51:00.001-05:00

Link
(found via Spool Spectrum)

Allison Manch

2012-04-25T14:10:00.001-05:00

Pearl Necklace, 2008 - Allison Manch
Hand-dyed embroidered handkerchief

Link

Concept to Collaboration : Artists Involving Others

2012-04-24T10:34:00.001-05:00

Many thanks to the students of UCLA who took part in this project! Heartfelt thanks to those who answered my call for stitchers:

Mark Bieraugel
Cathy Callahan
Meghan Casey
Shannon Genova-Scudder
Giddy Girlie
Jessica Kallam-Charlton
Colonial Needle
Eryca Sender
Rhea Tepp
Ellen Schinderman
Amy Sheridan
Stephanie Warren
Gabriela Zamora

More to come about this ongoing project: what we are stitching and why.

Fibergraf: Iviva Olenick & Jon Baker

2012-04-23T10:02:00.000-05:00

Blending Mode by FiberGraf. 2009.
Embroidery on fabric (ink jet print of graffiti by Jon Baker). 8" X 10.75"

Rose Hens. 2010.
Embroidery on fabric with ink jet print of graffiti drawing by Jon Baker. 9.75" X 7.5".

Collection of Washington University Library.

Iviva's work and the collaborative work of Fibergraf is currently on display at Fleisher Art Memorial as part of a group show called "Softer Edges : Fiber Artists in the Urban Environment". Show hangs through April 28th.

about Iviva Olenick

about Fibergraf

WIP 2011-2012

2012-04-19T12:08:00.004-05:00

Arimoto Yumiko

2012-03-16T18:43:00.003-05:00

Her website, sina1986.com

via mikapoka

Giant Lantern of Embroidery

2012-03-16T14:37:00.004-05:00

Lantern of embroidery hoops at the Seoul Living Design Fair 2012. Found here, via instagram. Seeking more information about the designer.

Order and Disorder: Alighiero Boetti by Afghan Women

2012-03-14T15:01:00.007-05:00

Incontri e contri - Alighiero Boetti

The Fowler Museum of Art at UCLA recently opened Order and Disorder: Alighiero Boetti by Afghan Women. If you are in the Los Angeles area, this show is not to be missed. The exhibition is a side-by-side look at these incredible embroidered works and the equally absorbing story of how they were made. From the museum's website:

Tutto - Alighiero Boetti

From 1971 to 1994, Italian artist Alighiero Boetti (1940–1994) embarked on a series of projects with Afghan embroiderers, creating monumental pieces that would become some of the artist’s most iconic works. Working first in Kabul in the 1970s and then in refugee camps in Pakistan after the 1979 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Afghan women embroidered works based on Boetti’s templates that include: colorful grids of letters that spell out phrases (such as “Order and Disorder”); Mappe (maps), wall-sized world maps with countries filled-in with the colors and symbols of their flags; and Tutto (everything), large-scale works entirely filled with intricately embroidered shapes representing diverse objects—sunglasses, a Hindu goddess, a protractor, twins, and more. The exhibition features twenty-nine works by Boetti along with documentary photographs of the Afghan embroiderers taken in 1990 at Boetti’s request by Randi Malkin Steinberger, as well as examples of the traditional styles of embroidery that might have played a role in stimulating Boetti's best-known works.

photo : Randi Steinberger from Boetti by Afghan People

Trying to understand the circumstances under which these women worked, how they perceived the work they were doing, and how they influenced the work as collaborators are what I find the most fascinating aspects of Boetti's embroideries. The density of the work is mind-boggling: huge canvases of solidly-worked straight stitches with no exposed fabric. You can actually see where one entire skein of floss is worked until a new one was begun -indicated by the slightly different saturation of the dye in the new skein.

From a press release on Steinberger's book:

Randi Steinberger’s photographs document the previously unseen story behind the making of some of Boetti’s (1940-1994) most iconic and monumental works, consisting of embroidered pieces of many sizes, including the large world maps incorporating the colors and symbols of each country’s flag.
In 1990, Randi Steinberger traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan, with Boetti’s blessing to document the process of the making of his embroideries. Due to Islamic cultural traditions, Boetti himself could not visit the women in their homes, where the embroidery was made. Randi Steinberger, traveling with a Boetti assistant, was given unprecedented access to follow “the journey of these cloths” from the shop of the antique dealers who served as middlemen into the craftswomen’s workrooms as they brought color and life to these spectacular works.

I have been invited by the Fowler Museum to lead two activities in conjunction with this exhibition. One will take place at the end of March (an embroidery workshop - all seats filled), and in April, I will be leading a collaborative art project open to participation from students of UCLA. (More on this as the event approaches.)

Order and Disorder is hanging until July 29, 2012.

Mariska Karasz

2012-02-09T21:40:00.003-06:00

Mariska Karasz

Peter Nencini

2012-02-08T21:33:00.002-06:00

Tyrella Chair

Source Photos - Sad Girls

2012-02-02T14:24:00.008-06:00

I like to sneak photos of pensive or sad girls for source images
(click any image to enlarge):

I have to be very sneaky about it:

Workshop at Fowler Museum UCLA

2012-01-19T15:11:00.004-06:00

photo : Kenneth B. Gall

The Fowler Museum of Art at UCLA has invited me to teach an embroidery workshop in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition: Order and Disorder: Alighiero Boetti by Afghan Women. Please come not just to learn embroidery, but to learn about the incredible work of this Italian conceptual artist and his collaboration with Afghan needleworkers.

Visit Needlework Revolution: Embroidery Workshop with Jenny Hart for full details and to sign up (seats are limited to twenty).

Allover Needlepoint

2011-12-09T10:37:00.003-06:00

Fawn by Frédérique Morrel

Wonderful. Animals with salvaged needlepoint hides by Frédérique Morrel. Some of her work is currently on display in the windows at Bergdorf Goodman in NYC.

Also making creative re-use of the abundance of needlepoint is Lindsten Form Studio:

Embroidery Chairs by Lindsten Form Studio

If you're wondering: Is this embroidery, needlepoint or tapestry? I explain here.

Veine Magazine - France

2011-12-06T10:36:00.005-06:00

My work and an accompanying interview are in the current issue of Veine Magazine (France). This is an online magazine that also features work by Iris Van Herpen, Kimiko Yoshida, Bartholot and Kate MccGuire. Interviews are in French and English. (I didn't realize my interview in French was going to be translated back into English, which made for an interesting read.)

Also, this micro interview for X/I - Ten Words One Shot (Germany).

Giant Embroidery Diagram 1 - Feather Stitch

2011-11-18T13:05:00.004-06:00

(click to enlarge)

Working on oversized embroidery diagrams. This is a feather stitch.

Eric Beltz - Recrafting History (Group Show)

2011-10-19T12:18:00.003-05:00

Sampler in graphite by Eric Beltz. Wonderful. Eric's bio says he teaches the "lost art of drawing" at UCSB and his most recent work recreates the look of a cross-stitched samplers. I really like that he's not drawing the stitches themselves but pixel-like boxes of varying shades.

This work is part of an upcoming group show:

Recrafting History
history, nostalgia & craft in the
American Memory
curated by Ellen Caldwell

Eric Beltz – Jen Pack – Karen Spector
Frohawk Two Feathers – Stephanie Washburn

October 29 - December 22, 2011
@ Taylor de Cordoba

(Thank you Ellen, for the invite to this show!)

Livefeed of Smithsonian Talk

2011-09-30T22:30:00.004-05:00

Here's a link to the livestream video of my keynote talk at the Smithsonian American Art Museum for Hello Etsy on September 18th. The opening keynote earlier that day was given by Dr. John Maeda, artist and President of RISD. His talk was fascinating.

Full Mano

2011-09-22T09:32:00.003-05:00

Fellow embroiderer and French artist Full Mano has a show opening tonight at the Krash Bar in Paris. Of course -just a week after I left. Bien que ce soit un cruise bar, j'y aurais allée bien volontiers! Bon vernissage et bisous!

Full Mano on Facebook

Previously on EAA:
Full Mano - Sur le Fil
Full Mano - Encore

Hong Chun Zhang

2011-09-21T11:25:00.008-05:00

"Twin Spirits"#1 (2002)
4ft x 10ft (each)
charcoal on paper

This past weekend, I spoke at Hello Etsy's satellite event in Washington D.C. at The Smithsonian American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery.

When I had a moment to slip away, I walked through the permanent collection and also checked out the current exhibition Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter. I was absolutely blown away by the monumental work of Hong Chung Zhang.